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Nichola Raihani

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The Social Instinct: How Cooperation Shaped the World Kindle Edition

by Nichola Raihani (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.6 105 ratings

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"Enriching" —Publisher's Weekly

"Excellent and illuminating"—Wall Street Journal

In the tradition of Richard Dawkins's The Selfish Gene, Nichola Raihani's The Social Instinct is a profound and engaging look at the hidden relationships underpinning human evolution, and why cooperation is key to our future survival.

Cooperation is the means by which life arose in the first place. It’s how life progressed through scale and complexity, from free-floating strands of genetic material to nation states. But given what we know about evolution, cooperation is also something of a puzzle. How does cooperation begin, when on a Darwinian level, all the genes in the body care about is being passed on to the next generation? Why do meerkats care for one another’s offspring? Why do babbler birds in the Kalahari form colonies in which only a single pair breeds? And how come some reef-dwelling fish punish each other for harming fish from another species?

A biologist by training, Raihani looks at where and how collaborative behavior emerges throughout the animal kingdom, and what problems it solves. She reveals that the species that exhibit cooperative behaviour most similar to our own tend not to be other apes; they are birds, insects, and fish, occupying far more distant branches of the evolutionary tree. By understanding the problems they face, and how they cooperate to solve them, we can glimpse how human cooperation first evolved. And we can also understand what it is about the way we cooperate that makes us so distinctive–and so successful.

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296 pages
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English
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St. Martin's Press
Publication date

August 31, 2021
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Editorial Reviews

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“Nichola Raihani illuminates how cooperation has shaped such disparate phenomena as cancer, monogamy, menopause, hatred toward vegans, and people leaving dirty dishes in the office sink…. [She] offers insight into how our hardwired drive to cooperate could help us meet the challenges rushing at us.”―Amy Brady, Scientific American

“Raihani's rewarding analysis ranges from genetics to politics, and from the individual to the international, including the COVID-19 pandemic.”―Nature

“Raihani employs social, economic, and biological theories to argue that living organisms have evolved through teamwork, and she discusses downsides of humans’ social instinct―it can lead to conspiracy theories and confirmation bias. Colorful examples…bring things to life. This enriching survey should have broad appeal.” ―Publishers Weekly

“In this captivating book, Raihani provides a compelling argument that cooperation is the secret of human success and yet has never been as crucial as it is now, during a global pandemic and with the threat of the climate crisis. I found this intriguing and beautifully written book hard to put down.” ―Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, author of Inventing Ourselves: The Secret Life of the Teenage Brain

“The Social Instinct is surprising, thoughtful and, best of all, endlessly entertaining, examining the puzzle and power of co-operation from the decks of the HMS Bounty to the babbling birds of the Kalahari. Absolutely loved it.” ―Will Storr, author of The Science of Storytelling

"A phenomenally important book. The story of why we humans evolved to become such a wonderfully cooperative, social species, and what that means for the world today. Raihani will change the way you think about ourselves.” ―Lewis Dartnell, author of Origins: How the Earth Shaped Human History

“Cooperation is at the heart of our bodies, our societies and our ecosystem. Raihani's stunning book flips the selfish gene on its head, showing us not only how to better understand the world, but also how to change it.” ―Matthew Cobb, author of The Idea of the Brain

“This is a glorious book, with an insight on every page.” ―Rory Sutherland, author of Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas that Don’t Make Sense

“A fascinating exploration of the ties that bind us from our smallest cell to our grandest society. .” ―Gaia Vince, author of Transcendence: How Humans Evolved Through Fire, Language, Beauty, and Time

About the Author

Nichola Raihani is a Royal Society University Research Fellow and Professor in Evolution and Behaviour at University College London, where she leads the Social Evolution and Behaviour Lab. An evolutionary biologist by training, she won the 2018 Philip Leverhulme Prize in Psychology for her research achievements, and was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology. She has also worked in the BBC Science Development Team, and appeared on several podcasts and radio shows, including BBC Radio 4’s “Hacking the Unconscious” and “Thought Cages.” She is the author of The Social Instinct and lives in London with her family.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B08R2KFLK7
Publisher ‏ : ‎ St. Martin's Press (August 31, 2021)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ August 31, 2021
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 2924 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 296 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #628,827 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #18 in Animal & Comparative Psychology
- #253 in Zoology (Kindle Store)
- #256 in Evolutionary Psychology (Books)

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4.6 105 ratings

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Nichola Raihani is a Royal Society University Research Fellow and Professor in Evolution and Behaviour at UCL. Her group's research focuses on the evolution of social behaviour in humans and non-human species. She has been widely published in scientific journals, won the 2018 Philip Leverhulme Prize in Psychology for her research achievements, and was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology in 2018. She lives in the UK with her family. You can find out more about her research here (http://www.seb-lab.org/) or find her on Twitter (@nicholaraihani).

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W. McAnally

Compelling Account

Reviewed in the United States on November 3, 2021

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Raihani provides compelling insights into how natural selection builds both collaboration and competition into our genes, shaping everything from our body’s cells to individuals to nations. She demonstrates how collaboration drove humans’ near-dominant species success. She also shows that the roots of altruism are real. Highly recommended.

3 people found this helpful

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Andrew W. Delton

Engaging and comprehensive overview of how we cooperate

Reviewed in the United States on December 2, 2021

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Engrossing with many human and animal examples about cooperation. In a relatively short book, Dr. Raihani does a remarkable job covering all the important theories and ideas evolutionary scientists have about why and how we cooperate. Accurate yet very accessible.

2 people found this helpful

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Readerbot

Deep dive into the molecular biology and evolutional origins of Social behavior

Reviewed in the United States on January 8, 2024

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Who we are, how we behave and why come as much from the mechahnics of molecular biology, genetics and procreation dynamics as it does from intellectual paradigms. This book is extremely enlightening if perhaps at times a tich tedious to grasp.

Reviewed in the United States on July 13, 2021

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Watt a fantastic read I cured up it down 📚💯👌

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Armen Shirvanian

Valuable book about cooperation, prosocial behavior, punishment, and individual sense

Reviewed in the United States on March 28, 2022

Cooperation is such a strong force in our society, such that taking a look at it is important. Professor Nichola Raihani does a great job of taking her direct research on cooperation and relaying it over to the reader. Examples of cooperation in animals such as the cleaner fish are able to tell us what kinds of back-and-forth dealings we make as people, and how they can serve to be mutually beneficial when both ends are watchful of their own give-and-take.

The book starts with a look at individuals, in the light of "The Selfish Gene" by Dawkins, and makes its way to families, beyond families, and lastly to large-scale societies. I like how this broadening was done across the book, somewhat like how Dr. Robert Sapolsky did with "Behave", where he branched out from short time segments of decision-making to very long-term time frames.

It was clear to see that Professor Raihani has strong experience with the market of cooperation, and the immediate forms of punishment that come up when one end of a deal is not met up to market quality. Animals are showcased as having social lives full of richness not so different from our own, and it was clear to see this when some examples from animals look nearly identical to what we do as people in certain cooperative scenarios.

To learn more about individual behavior, cooperation, punishment, and how working together has allowed for building of the great things in our society, take a look at "The Social Instinct".

3 people found this helpful

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Erez Yoeli

My favorite book about cooperation

Reviewed in the United States on November 25, 2021

This is a much needed successor to classics like Dawkins's Selfish Gene and Axelrod's The Evolution of Cooperation. It is well researched, well written, and well read.

The book is replete with fascinating examples of cooperation amongst cells, animals (cleaner fish play a starring role), and large-scale human societies. Raihani provides clear explanations of the mechanisms supporting cooperation in these diverse cases, lucidly explicating the similarities and differences (yes ants and humans cooperate at large scale, but for very different reasons and, thus, in very different ways).

The book includes thorough explanations not just of cooperation, but of its limits--of how and why it breaks down. Nature, we learn, is only so good at aligning incentives; Raihani homes in on the conflict of interest that drive conflict between two parents, between parents and their offspring, between cancerous cells and the host body, and between collusive firms and society more broadly, and so on.

The Social Instinct forcefully and convincingly makes the case that to understand the world around us, we must understand cooperation. If it were up to me, it would anchor biology syllabi worldwide.

Erez Yoeli
Research Scientist, MIT Sloan School of Management
Author, Hidden Games

3 people found this helpful

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arne aandal

Nichola Raihani is a brilliant writer

Reviewed in the United States on August 1, 2021

I bought this book as an Augdio Book after reading the recommendation in Nature. It is brilliant book that clearly brings the subject of Human Social Instinct many steps further. It is good read for the common public and, I suspect, also for the scientific society. What makes it particularily interesting and also important is the presentation of the evolution of our social instincts also from a female perspective.
Arne Magnus Aandal, Oslo, Norway. August 1st, 2020.

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CJ

Fun and easy read. Highly recommended.

Reviewed in Canada on January 25, 2022

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Informative and eye opening about various levels of corporations from cells in our bodies to ants colonies. Fascinating and fun read.

Frank Calberg

The social instinct

Reviewed in Germany on March 13, 2023

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Top takeaways from reading the book:
- Page 78: For most of our time on earth, children have been raised by multiple caregivers - including parents, brothers and sisters, grandparents as well as aunts and uncles. Increasingly, external caregivers / educators provide services for children / families.
- Page 79: One-parent caring of children and the other parent working is very unusual - both cross culturally and seen in a historical perspective.
- Page 125: Only humans have institutions such as fire departments, which are dedicated to helping people. Other species do not.
- Page 125: Humans differ from other species by voluntarily helping people we are not related to, for example through donations.
- Page 163: Reputation systems, for example on digital platforms where people can give feedback using stars and comments, help people to cooperate.
- Page 227: The earliest forms of institutionalized leadership were likely to have been inclusive and democratic. Leaders were those people, who were best able to create consensus and coordinate actions. They were well liked and respected by group members.

One person found this helpful

Jonny Peckham

Erudite and highly readable

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 9, 2022

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Introduces the reader to a broad range of phenomena on an interesting, relatable topic.
The author is an expert on a biological approach to psychology. She gives detailed and convincing explanations as to how much of our behaviour is unconsciously influenced by our biology. We are animals, after all, but as a clinical psychologist I don't usually think along these lines. The first section on cooperation of cells within the human body was fascinating and the newest to me. Wide-ranging and though-provoking, interspersed with relevant personal anecdotes, including the high level of motivation and stamina needed to carry out animal observations in the field. I sometimes wanted to know more about some of the mechanisms by which behaviour in lower order animals is determined, for example, how do bees know when it is in their genes interests to act in a particular way.

One person found this helpful

Tobia Spampatti

The clearest and most fascinating take on how the world works

Reviewed in France on March 28, 2022

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This little book is a voyage into the secret sauce of animal and human life. Professor Raihani's remarkable style delivers a simple yet rich understanding of what makes us tick - you will close the last page seeing the world through different lenses. Highly recommended!

Cyril C. Gruter

Fascinating discourse of the role of cooperation in shaping our success

Reviewed in Australia on January 11, 2023

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In her book “The Social Instinct” Nichola Raihani explores the evolution of cooperation at multiple hierarchically nested levels, from the molecular/cellular level, to the individual, family, wider social network all the way to large-scale societies. She makes a convincing case that “cooperation is undoubtedly the pivotal ingredient in our success”. She discusses the usual suspects when it comes to cooperation such as kin selection, reciprocity, indirect reciprocity but also the less frequently discussed concept of fitness interdependence (i.e. the degree to which two or more organisms influence each other’s success in replicating their genes).

Raihani covers a lot of ground and discusses cooperation in the broadest sense which includes things like teaching and grandparenting, traits that are exceptionally well developed in humans. Conflict, the other side of the coin, also takes centre stage, as conflict and cooperation often go hand in hand. Examples of conflict discussed include maternal-fetal conflict and sibling rivalry. One take-home message is that cooperation also has a dark side, e.g. cooperation can cause harm and impose costs to society (in the form of corruption), or cooperation among cancer cells can cause tumours.

Another common theme is the context-dependence of cooperation. For example, parochial altruism or in-group favouritism is not presented as a fixed trait but as malleable by material or existential security, i.e. people expand and shrink their “circles of moral regard” depending on whether they are reliant on close social networks as a form of social insurance or whether the state assumes primary responsibility in ensuring that people’s basic needs are met (through public services such as the military and healthcare).

There are many places in the book where Raihani expands on the canonical narrative and presents rather eye-opening food for thought. For example, she argues that paranoia can be regarded as a tool to identify social threats. Or she provides evidence that excessively generous acts can be perceived as competitive rather than altruistic and that self-aggrandizing behavior is frowned upon (not only in forager societies but also modern societies in a wide range of social contexts). Or, in the section on punishment, Raihani questions the idea that human punishment is tailored to achieve group-level benefits and instead argues that punishment may be driven by individual self-interest.

Raihani skilfully weaves the human and animal findings together and produces a coherent and convincing account of what lies beneath cooperation. The animal findings come largely from social/eusocial insects, fish, birds, and meerkats. Primates are perhaps a bit underrepresented given that many excel at cooperation. Raihani draws heavily on taxa that have evolved cooperative tendencies in response to similar socio-ecological exigencies and not just phylogenetic closeness.

Raihani masterfully handles a vast and difficult-to-navigate literature which requires being conversant with multiple fields and approaches. The narrative is completely up-to-date with lots of recent research findings (from the last few years). For instance, instead of just taking the obstetrical dilemma for granted, Raihani highlights an alternative, more recent view, i.e. that human pregnancy is terminated not because of anatomic constraints but because of energetic constraints.

Each chapter opens with an anecdote (a news story, personal experience etc.) that seamlessly leads into the chapter topic. The real-world examples and scenarios function to lure us into a topic. This is extremely well done. Raihani draws on her own field work on cleaner wrasse and babblers and more recent experimental work on humans to illustrate concepts. She writes exceptionally lucid and has a knack for making complex material accessible to an educated layperson.

Raihani presents views from the academic literature and then offers her own verdict on the credibility of some of these arguments based on logical articulation. For example, she does not agree that human groups are super-organisms (p. 27) or that microbial and host genomes ought to be seen as a single coherent unit called the hologenome (p. 31). Raihani also does not shy away from bold statements such as on the efficiency (or lack thereof) of the penal system with its emphasis on retribution rather than reforming offenders.

The last chapter addresses the difficulty of engineering cooperation using two pressing global issues, the Covid pandemic and climate change, as examples. People’s unwillingness to produce costly public goods creates collective action problems. Raihani advocates resolving global public goods problems by “thinking global, acting local” (coined by Nobel laureate Elinor Ostrom). This phrase encapsulates the idea that when groups of local actors work independently (e.g. community initiatives) they can generate global benefits. This view spells hope for the sustainable management of public resources. Another possible way to avert the Tragedy of the Commons (outlined by Martin Nowak in "Supercooperators") is to advertise individual behaviour, e.g. by exposing those individuals who use the most energy or those companies with the highest emissions and fewest investments in climate protection. People’s concern with maintaining a good reputation is a powerful mechanism for the creation of public goods, so broadcasting one’s behavior could be a good incentive for everyone to reduce their carbon footprint.

It’s hard to find any flaws in this book. Perhaps it's worth mentioning that one framework for explaining large-scale cooperation, viz. cultural group selection, does not really feature in the book. Another minor quibble is that in chapter 5 Raihani concludes that ancestral humans were (serially) monogamous. It’s maybe more plausible that they formed monogamous or polygynous pair bonds that were not exclusive, with occasional extra-pair matings.

Overall, this is an immensely welcome, fascinating discourse of some of the mainstays of modern behavioral ecology. With her background and expertise in this field, Raihani is the perfect guide for a tour into the wonderful world of cooperation.

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